


Counterpoise

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Old West, POV Chris Larabee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 17:01:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11741346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: Chris has a firm plan for how he intends to spend the evening. Unfortunately, the rest of the Seven have entirely different intentions.





	Counterpoise

Vin was the first to disturb his peace, damn his balls, sliding into the chair at his right without a by-your-leave and reaching across to help himself to a glass of Red-Eye. But Vin could be counted on to keep his yap shut and not care about being ignored, unlike some folks, so Chris carried on as though he weren't there. He took his bottle back and poured himself another glass of the whiskey. He followed its bite on his tongue with another pull on a cigarillo.

The saloon was emptier than most Saturday nights and the gloom was thicker than the smoke hanging over this table in the far back corner. Enough tables were empty that every man in the place could've had his own all to himself. Most were clustered at tables nearest the glowing pot-bellied stove.

So it was doubly annoying when Josiah, heavy footsteps heralding his arrival straight from the door like a bitching homing pigeon, sat himself down across from Vin. At least he'd brought his own half-depleted bottle of Red-Eye and filled Vin's empty glass before downing a glass of his own and smacking his lips. He set the bottle down between himself and Vin, leaving Chris's bottle sacrosanct in the curl of his left hand.

Josiah relaxed into the chair like he was settling in for a long stay, looking about himself, but he didn't seem in a nattering mood, either, so Chris paid him no mind and concentrated on his own business of getting blind drunk as soon as fucking possible.

Matters proceeded swimmingly through another cigarillo. The only sound in the place was the murmur of muted conversation, the clink of bottles, and the snap of cards until some fool took to tinkling out an irritatingly quick, cheerful, and familiar tune on the piano. Chris grit his teeth and tightened his hand around the base of the bottle to keep from reaching for his gun.

Nathan arrived with a waft of fresh night air on the tail-end of the song, and with his arrival went the quiet: Because right on his heels, after a detour to the bar to get a glass of milk from Jim, Inez's barkeep, came JD, and JD never arrived anywhere without his mouth flapping. He obligingly headed back to the bar at Josiah's request he fetch an empty whiskey glass for Nathan, but then there he was at Chris's goddamned table, plunking himself down like he was welcome and flashing a smile before taking a gulp from his beer glass of frothy milk.

"Boy howdy," he said, wiping away his milk mustache with the back of his hand before waving the smoke away from his face, "is it cold out there! I don't think there's a puddle or trough that ain't frozen already and it ain't even near eight o'clock yet. I just come from the stable--"

"--couldn't possibly tell," Vin drawled from under his tilted hat, but he also gave JD a friendly grin to take the sting out of the words.

"Hah-hah!" JD paused to sniff at himself cautiously, though.

Whether he caught a whiff of the faint smell of manure and warm horsehide his clothes gave off or not was impossible to say since he just shrugged and took another chug of his milk.

"Anyways, all our horses are settled in the stable, happy as crickets in the warm and chomping on an extra ration of grain me and Tiny gave 'em in celebration." He grinned round at them all.

"That was real nice of you to check on them for us, JD." Nathan patted his shoulder.

"Nothing warmer than a manger on a cold winter's night." Josiah's ruminating tone and faraway gaze at least put a stop to the talking for a few blessed moments' peace.

But then JD was off again and Nathan joined in, and even Josiah threw in comments between sips of his whiskey, his bottle lowering more rapidly now between himself, Vin, and Nathan. Chris tightened his hand around his own bottle and considered departing for his room in the boardinghouse, where he could drink and smoke in peace without interruption.

Though that would mean actually getting himself up and going out into the cold and into the almost equal chill of his dark room for the rest of this very long night. He lit another cigarillo to ponder whether the peace he'd gain would make up for losing the warmth here.

A clatter on the stairs across the room and a booming laugh heralded Buck's arrival. He parted from a ruffled vision in a searingly bright green satin and turquoise velvet outfit the colors of which never appeared in nature, not to mention the matching feathers in her hair. She waggled her fingers at Buck before heading off to spell Jim behind the bar. Buck looked around the saloon, then came clumping over to their table, his face wreathed in a big grin, distributing bottles of beer as he slid into the chair next to JD.

"Howdy, boys!" He looked around. "What the hell's with being cramped into this corner? There's a whale more comfortable space to stretch out in tonight!"

His bright eyes rested on Chris. Chris ignored him.

Vin unexpectedly spoke up. "Farthest table from the door, Bucklin. Warmest spot in the whole place."

"Yeah." JD nodded like he'd been thinking just that very thing. "Not even a draft back here!"

"That's for tootin' sure." Buck tried waving away a cloud of smoke Chris shot toward him, as he'd been blowing smoke across the table in the direction of whoever was annoying him the most at any given moment. In the tight corner under the balcony and behind the unused roulette wheel, the smoke lingered and Buck soon gave up the effort with a sigh.

Chris allowed himself a smirk. All he had to do was stick his ground and he might win his warm peaceful solitude back again. Damned if he'd let them chase him out into the freezing blackness. With that issue squared in his head, he settled deeper into his chair.

Now all he had to do was tune out the din of lively, cheery talk that commenced between Buck, JD, and Nathan, along with deep, rumbled observations from Josiah. Even Vin, the traitor, contributed to the racket with occasional drawled comments. Not one of them tried to attract Chris's notice or draw him into whatever foofaraw they were going on about, but there they were crowding his table and interrupting his planned night.

Then his hell completed itself as Ezra, who'd been involved in deep play on the balcony across the room in Chris's line of sight all evening, gathered his winnings, rose, gave his sour-faced companions a jaunty tip of his hat, and moved sprightly down the stairs to the bar to gather a bottle, handing over part of his winnings, before heading for their table. Behind him, under Chris's gaze, his erstwhile partners in play looked disgruntled, but not dangerous. Ezra made a point of never playing with drunks. The men he entertained at cards were all soberly eager to lose their hard-earned cash to a glib gambler in flashy clothes. More fool them, as they all eventually realized.

Ezra took the last empty seat, at Chris's left side. The only other spot at the table beside Chris's that let a man sit with his back to the wall and with a full range view of the room.

Ezra, naturally, didn't give a fuck about invading Chris's space, jostling Chris with his arm as he sat down and adjusted his chair to his satisfaction, which put him close enough that Chris could smell that scent he used. But Ezra also plunked a bottle of Inez's finest whiskey on the table between them, plucking Chris's bottle from his grip with a grimace and putting it on the floor behind his chair.

"Tonight's no night for rotgut, gentlemen," he said, clucking his tongue. "Not that any night is. Also--" he eyed Chris with as sharp a look as Buck had earlier "--it's well past time for supper. JD, why don't you see what celebratory food Inez arranged to be available before she took herself off to Mary's party?"

He held out more of his winnings.

"All right!" JD leaped to his feet with an enthusiastic grin, took the bills, and hurried over to the bar.

"Excellent thought." Josiah nodded.

"I could eat." Vin: being a traitor again. Blast him.

A couple of big serving plates duly arrived, thanks to JD and Buck, to crowd the center of the table and spark yet more mindless chatter over a variety of cold tapas and hot, fragrant beef and chicken enchiladas. The plate with the hot food had a brass dome to keep the heat in. Everybody dove in with their fingers, napkins tucked into shirt fronts to catch the drippings.

Except for Ezra, naturally, who held his napkin on his hand like a plate. He never could do things like normal folks, the prissy bastard.

Chris poured himself more of Ezra's fine whiskey, enjoying its smooth sweetness. He took no notice of the food. Eating had not figured into his plan for this night and he saw no bitching reason to change his plans.

...until Ezra elbowed him with a warning jab that Chris knew would be only the first and mildest of more to come if he didn't pay attention. Chris growled under his breath. Ezra was oblivious in typical Ezra fashion. And it hadn't escaped Chris's notice that Ezra's arrival--and rearrangement of his chair--had blocked Chris's easy escape from his corner hideaway. Vin and Ezra had him neatly boxed in.

He finally broke. "What the bitching hell are you all doing here bothering the fuck out of my night?"

His growled words brought instant silence with everybody staring at him, momentarily frozen as though shocked at the reminder he had a voice. At least it stopped that relentlessly cheerful talking.

He didn't miss Ezra's rolled eyes at his left and Vin's pursed mouth on his right. JD blinked, Buck narrowed his eyes over a tapa held halfway to his mouth, and Nathan frowned as he finished chewing a bite.

Only Josiah didn't change expression, and Josiah was the first to speak.

"Christmas Eve isn't a time to be alone, Brother." Josiah's voice was deceptively mild.

"Fucking right it isn't." Buck's voice was forceful, though it broke a little at the end, just enough to remind Chris that Buck was the only other person with the same memories of an excited little boy and a warm, generous, laughing woman as poisoned this night for Chris.

The silence stretched until Ezra broke the tension with a clipped, "Indeed."

"Miss my ma specially at times like this." Vin's quiet voice commanded attention. "Good to spend it with friends."

"Yeah." JD swallowed audibly while Nathan nodded.

Chris closed his eyes. He had his own wagonload of pain and anger. He neither needed nor fucking wanted the reminder he wasn't the only one for whom this night was filled with ghosts and shadows.

"At any rate, it's too long and cold a night in a host of ways to spend any part of it on one's own." Ezra's acerbic matter-of-factness carried the hidden message that Chris wouldn't be facing a night alone in a cold, haunted bed.

He didn't, after all, need to prepare himself for a lone fight against the inevitable nightmares lying in wait for him.

"Fine," he said when he was sure he had control of his voice. It was rough with smoke and bad whiskey, but they were all used to that.

The last of the freeze melted and the other six slowly recovered their determined high spirits. Nathan put an enchilada on a clean napkin and slid it across the table to Chris, who eyed it for a moment, but picked it up with a nod of thanks before Ezra got around to jabbing him again.

Chris didn't say anything else the rest of the evening, but his body relaxed and he stopped flinching from memories. Ezra's arm, pressed against his in the cramped space, warmed his left side while Vin's low chuckles and unmoving solidity warmed his right and the others were a buffer between him and any lingering icy chill. He ate enough to quell the fizz of unease in his gut and slowed both his drinking and smoking as the evening passed.

When they all got up to troop out at ten, with the saloon closing early so Jim and the girls could get home at a decent hour, Chris met each of the others' eyes for a moment before nodding to them. He stood for a few minutes on the boardwalk outside after they'd all parted ways, looking up at the canopy of stars washing the clear black sky with pinpricks of light, as the stragglers stumbled out and around him. When the saloon went dark behind him, he turned and walked slowly to the boardinghouse.

Ezra, who'd made a point of saying he was heading to his room above the saloon when he'd said good night to them all before going up the stairs, was waiting in Chris's room. The blinds were shut, the curtains drawn, and a candle lit the small space with a soft, homey glow.

Ezra had already hung his gunbelt over the left-side iron bedpost and turned down the sheets on the cold bed Chris had been expecting.

But not the empty bed he'd been dreading and it wouldn't be cold for long at all.


End file.
